Heath Ledger left this world too early. He died back in 2008, and it was a shock to everyone. Not only was he incredibly talented as an actor, but by all accounts, he was a pretty genuine dude as well.

During a recent interview, Jake Gyllenhaal talked a little about Ledger. As most of you probably know, Gyllenhaal co-starred with Ledger in the award-winning ‘Brokeback Mountain’ film.

The movie was nominated for eight Oscars, and won three of them including, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score. But somehow, it lost Best Picture to Crash.

That’s not why Heath Ledger refused to present the following year though. He didn’t care that they lost. He didn’t like the fact that the Oscars were trying to make jokes about the film.

I mean, I remember they wanted to do an opening for the Academy Awards that year that was sort of joking about it. I’m always like, ‘It’s all in good fun.’ And Heath said, ‘It’s not a joke to me – I don’t want to make any jokes about it.’

That’s the thing I loved about Heath. He would never joke. Someone wanted to make a joke about the story or whatever, he was like, ‘No. This is about love. Like, that’s it, man. Like, no.’

And you have to respect him for that. It’s 2020 now and gay films and tv shows are all over the place, but back then? They weren’t nearly as popular, and a lot of people were making sophomoric jokes about the movie.

Ledger wanted to honor the story. A true love story, and he rightly believed that it wasn’t okay to joke about it just because it happened to feature two dudes in love instead of a straight couple.